


Safe and Sound

by theparanoidwriter



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Panic, Paranoia, freaking out, happy birthday marco
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-17
Updated: 2014-06-17
Packaged: 2018-02-05 00:47:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1799335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theparanoidwriter/pseuds/theparanoidwriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marco hasn't texted Jean in a while and Jean doesn't take it well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Safe and Sound

**Author's Note:**

> OKAY!  
> IMPORTANT!  
> There is a lot of panic described, though from what I've heard and told, not wuite panic attack description, but be leery!  
> Abuse mention  
> Abusive Parents mention  
> Alcoholism mention  
> semi-graphic descriptions of an accident?  
> Body horror maybe~  
> Depression/Grief (kinda sorta again it's hit and miss from what I hear)

Jean’'s eyes darted down at the screen that lit up in his hands as the generic ringtone went off on his phone. His eyes lit up for a moment but all the energy dropped when he read who the message was from. With a light sigh, he placed his phone back down on the coffee table and turned on the t.v.  
Some television should keep his mind off of things.  
Until they were both 18, neither of them had a choice but to live with their families in their own homes in two separate cities. True, Marco was about a 2 hour drive away – he was close, but not close enough. Especially not close enough now, when it had been over 14 hours since the last time they had had any communication. While Jean’'s hometown might not be the safest of places, it was a haven compared to Jinae which filled the news on a daily basis with some new murder, some mugging, some awful crime that had happened. In fact, Jinae had the highest crime rate in the entire country, so he had every reason to be worried, didn't he?  
He shook his head and tried to disperse all the horrible possibilities running through his head, or rather, bolting, just like children playing a game of hide-and-seek, rushing to find their perfect hiding spot as time begins to run out. And just like those children, all the ideas may have hidden, but they still kept themselves tucked into every nook and cranny of Jean’'s mind. But he didn't want to be it, he didn't want to look into every possible crevice to find them; he wanted them gone.  
There was a loud bang down the hall followed by his sister shouting, “I'm going to bed!” She said something else, but it was drowned out by the heavy metal music that he could hear from even down here, pouring out of her headphones. She couldn't sleep without her music, even if it was deafeningly loud.  
Music! That was it! He changed the channel to Music Choice, a series of channels that did nothing but play music all day. He found the pop hits channel, thinking the positive vibes would ease his mind. And it worked. For a little while. He sang along to Lady Gaga, bee bopped to Katy Perry's catchy tunes. However, when “Safe and Sound” started playing, he froze in his seat. Everything tense.

Just close your eyes  
The sun is going down  
You'll be alright  
No one can hurt you now  
Come morning light  
You and I'll be safe and sound

He wanted to associate something happy, something reassuring with it, but he couldn't. He just kept hearing the slow tune of the song, he heard the soft voice and it took on a life of its own in his mind, flashing gruesome images in his mind that he couldn't shake. Couldn't scatter. They kept forming and forming and would not be stopped.  
Safe and sound. He hoped Marco was, but...what if...what if that safe and sound wasn't what he meant, wasn't what he thought? What if Marco was out on some street somewhere, dying with the morning light? Blood spilling out onto the cement floor, legs twisted at some unnatural angle, the life quickly fleeting from his eyes, cold and shaking but finally finding warmth and a light sparking in his eyes as he is greeted by death?  
He reached out his hand, fumbling with the remote, hand shaking and dropping it several times before he managed to grasp it long enough to press a button. Just any button. 2 showed up on the screen a few seconds before it changed to a news broadcasting channel.  
Jean slumped back into his seat, exhaling heavily as the sight of fluffy kittens and puppies filled the screen. They were reporting on the next town over's yearly Animal Shelter Ball. It wasn't really a ball, but it was an event where they let the animals out of their cages to roam and enjoy themselves. Parents brought their children, and children eagerly came in hopes of finding a furry friend of their own to take home.  
He smiled and watched the fresh new faces, children with all their baby fat still, squatting next to a kitten, and petting them with that open handed slap way that young children often had, some petting them with tiny curled fists , and some others jumping away when a puppy licked their hand.  
Despite it all, they were happy, and the giggles he heard through the television warmed his heart. It was a beautiful thing to be able to watch what, for some of them, was their very first time ever petting or even seeing a kitten or puppy firsthand. There were shrieks in delights, peals of laughter, small gasps which were accompanied by tiny o's on pudgy faces.  
One of the reporters interviewed a child and he swore the smile on his face would stretch right off his face as the four year old shouted into the microphone, “Puppies! Puppies! There's there's big ones. And small ones. And brown ones and black ones and white ones and fat ones and spotted ones and, “he paused to point back behind him, “and that one, with the brown spots, his name is Spots! And I like him.”  
The child's father started to speak, “Now Tom-” when the program cut to something else. Breaking News scrolled across the bottom of the screen as a new set of reporters took the scene and reported that a decision had been made on a court case up north. A convicted murderer who had served out his sentence in prison was being released to the Jinae area.  
Jean read the man's name and didn't bother to listen for the rest of it, but rushed to his room, slammed open the laptop and went to the search engine. He typed in the name and hit enter, eyes scanning the page and quickly finding released records. The man had murdered over 5 men and had confessed to sexually assaulting over 15 boys and men. He was being released further south because all his victims were in the North. He would have somebody supervising him and he had a tracker, but it was the address given that stole all the air out of the room and sucked it right out from his lungs. That block, that was..that was near Marco’s school wasn't it?  
His fingers flew across the keyboard as he rushed to find the answer, he punched in the school's name, fingers tapping on the desk as he waited for the page to load then rushed through the results until he found the school website. He clicked the link, hand wavering over the track pad, waiting for the page to load so he could maneuver around, scroll down and see the address.  
Come on. Come on.  
The pictures on the page started to show up and he scrolled down as fast as he could, reading the address then bringing up yet another tab. He thought the coast was clear, but he didn't know the JInae area well enough to be 100% sure. One more search, a few more clicks, and he had his answer. Jean was safe. At school, at least.  
But what if the criminal were to go out to one of the other areas? What if he picked up his dry cleaning from the one down the block that Marco always mentioned? What if he decided to eat at the restaurant his mother owned? Or what if he went to the firm his father worked at?  
He saved the search of Jinae news to scan later then made a dash for the living room where his phone still sat on the coffee table. He hadn't heard anything, but he checked just in case he had missed it. 0 new messages. 0 new calls.  
Images on the screen caught his attention and he looked up to watch some explosion on replay on a freeway. But which freeway? The number read across the bottom and his breath caught in his throat again. He watched the flames spread up into the sky, and he could hear the crackling, almost as if it was right beside him. He saw the totaled cars , and the rubber marks across the freeway from where they skid out of control. Just watching it, the smell of burning rubber filled his nose. Was there an accident? Had there been? He left everything there and rushed over to the door, poking his head out and looking both ways down the street. Nothing. He checked again then closed the door and stepped back inside.  
His breath came out in shaky spurts as he tried to calm himself down but more and more possible scenes rolled out in his head. Marco’s dad was a drunk, what if he had come home in a rage and beaten Marco? Was Marco in the hospital? Had he killed Marco? What if he had gotten in a car accident or not acted quick enough in a mugging, made one wrong move, said one wrong word – he wouldn't put it past him.  
That was it. He couldn't take this anymore. Jean picked up his phone again, pressed the green call button and waited. It went straight to voicemail. It would have rung at least once if Marco was ignoring him, right? Was the phone off or the battery dead? He dialed the number again, stopping several times to go back and delete an extra number punched in as his fingers rushed across the screen.  
“Marco? Marco? Come on…”  
“Marco Bodt..is not available at the moment. Please leave a message after the beep.”  
Jean froze a moment but decided to leave a voicemail. He waited for the beep and gushed, “Hey Marco. It’s Jean. I hope you’re okay. Please be okay. You need to be okay. Send me a message or call me or something soon as you can.”  
He hung up the phone then, unable to finish with a goodbye. The word felt cursed and he dared not speak it aloud, and especially not into Marco’s voicemail. Who knew what bad luck it might bring? He tried to push it from his brain and called one more time, hoping just as fervently as the first time that the phone would pick up this time. 

It didn’t.

His hands shook visibly before him as he set the phone back down on the coffee table. He sat down once again, his hands scattering, trying to find something to keep them busy, grasping at the cushion around him, at his legs, at his arms, snatching at strands of hair. He bit his lip, scanning the room for some means of distraction. When his gaze returned back to the couch he found his hands wrapped around the remote, bright images moving across the screen. They felt distant, not a part of this, not real. The words buzzed faintly in his ears. He felt like he was at the dentist’s office, hyped up on Novacaine, and the dentists must have jacked up the amount when his eyes connected with the tv screen’s images.

There, on the screen, a news reporter was covering some accident. There was an old man, he didn’t know what his profession was. He didn’t even really notice anything but the wrinkles. What his focus was on, was what the camera zoomed in on next. There was a mangled corpse propped against the side of the freeway. A corpse with short black hair, parted in the middle. He couldn’t have been more than 17, the right half of his face stripped to the bone in a gorey mess.His right arm had been torn off and a jagged zig zag down his his chest where three of his right ribs showed through the missing flesh. 

Despite how horrific it all was, that wasn’t the worst thing about it. What sent chills down Jean’s spine was the likeness it held to Marco. Everything came rushing at him as he noted the square shape of his face, Marco’s nose, even with a quarter of it missing, Jean would recognize that chest anywhere. His breath hitched and he waited for a name, any name but Marco Bodt. It was a sliver of hope and he was holding out for it even if the rest of his body was screaming in anguish. He waited. Waited for the name.

“Local Jinae student judging by the school emblem on his shirt. 

Fuck.

He’d forgotten about that.

Please..don’t be Marco. Please don’t be Marco.  
“We are unable to identify the body at the moment.”

He froze up, and every single detail bounced in his head, his mind rebuilt the missing flesh, covered up the visible bones, placed Marco’s warm smile on the corpse. A number scrolled across the screen for any viewers to call the local police department if they had any information, that if they did it was crucial they give this information now so they could contact all family.

Jean didn’t give a second thought to it, phone in hand again, dialing the number. 

“We’re sorry. The number you have dialed is no longer in service.”

The phone hit the floor with a loud thud. Jean stood, hand still clenched in the phone holding position, poised next to his left ear. Disconnected? It..it couldn’t be, could it? Why would it be? Why would-

“My mom is addicted to the news channel. She’ll warn me if something happens or there are any criminals; don’t worry about me Jean! “

Marco’s words echoed in his head.

His mom.. Marco’s dad would have seen the news. She must have disconnected the phone, ever the one to act quickly. 

It didn’t make sense, but it did. It had showed up just a minute or two ago, hadn’t it? But then they had always had money struggles, surely she acted to save them as much as they could from the bill before the funeral costs. But wasn’t that insensitive?

But it was the only explanation. Unless. Unless, it had just been a mishap. That happened once before. Jean bent over to pick up the phone and tried again. And again he received the heartcrushing words: “We’re sorry. The number you have dialed is no longer in service.”

He held onto the phone this time. His breath calm. Grip ever steady on the phone as he slowly lowered it from his ear. 

No..but...how..had..had anybody seen how it happened? Does anybody know what happened?

“Sir? Do you know the boy’s name?”

Sir? What…? He blinked and looked at his phone’s screen again. The number across the screen matched the one from the television screen. The JPD. 

“Sir, if you know the boy’s name, please tell us now. The sooner we know, the sooner we can alert his family.”

When did he call them? He didn’t remember…

“Sir?”

He could feel the lump lodged in his throat growing bigger and tighter. “M, “ he started, fighting it down, wide eyed, staring blankly straight ahead, “Marco. Marco B-”

The phone vibrated in his hand at an incoming call, but he didn’t recognize the number and ignored it when prompted again.

“Yes, Marco what?”

“Marco Bodt. President of Jinae High School Social Lights Club.” He wasn’t sure why he had said that last part. But he had. He hung up the phone and let himself sink down into the couch, body suddenly extremely heavy and fell asleep.

His dreams were black. Dark. Nothing. Or he dreamt and he could not remember them. Maybe it was best he didn’t remember them. Or maybe not, because anything would have been better than the crushing reality that hit him several moments after he had woken up and stared at his phone, eyes catching his wallpaper - Marco and him sitting in the library. Marco sat hiding his smile behind a textbook as the librarian scolded Jean for being too loud.

Marco had stepped in and kept him from being kicked out, which he was grateful for because they had a huge final that day. He still goofed off a little longer, dragging Marco into it until it grew late and they had to rush and cram. Poking each other with their pencils as penalty for getting an incorrect answer and smooches for a correct one.

He remembered when they got their results and he got a C, proud of himself. He took it home and his father was disappointed, it wasn’t good enough. His father lectured him over two hours how if he kept this up he’d slip up to a D, then an F and he’d have to drop out of school and resort to selling his body on the streets. 

He remembered calling Marco that night, curled into a small ball and hating himself for not trying harder. His parents and siblings had gone off to celebrate their good grades and left him alone. They didn’t have to leave the house for him to feel alone, but with Marco..Marco took that away. Marco was there. He was always there. For Jean, for Eren, for Daz, for everybody.

It hit him then. That was why he had added that last line. Marco had died alone. Had been alone in his last moments. The same guy who had been there for everybody else when they needed it most, was alone. Alone and unknown. 

But at least now he had identified him. Marco wasn’t just another nameless corpse. He had a name. He had some sort of tether, some sliver of an identity, of association. And even if most of the public wrote him off as “some careless punk” or “another kid”, they would have that. Marco Bodt, President of the Social Lights Club. A club specifically designed for helping out the community. It was small, but he had given the world a small nugget of Marco.

He forced a smile. Marco always gave pieces of himself to the people around him. Guess it was literal pieces now.

He managed a laugh and reached for his phone to text Marco and tell him about the joke he had made, expecting Marco to laugh lightly despite his crude humor. He had the inbox up and pressed the thread he had with Marco before the laughter stopped. 

Oh. Yeah. Marco’s dead.

He dropped the phone down on the couch and leaned back into the couch, lacking the energy to do anything else, lacking the thought process to do anything else. 

What do you do when your best friend, your boyfriend dies so suddenly? When you don’t know how he died? What do you do when the best damn thing you have ever had has been taken away from you?

He felt himself sink deeper into the couch. If he kept at this, he’d get stuck like his sister did that one time at their great aunt’s 80th birthday party. But he didn’t care. The couch was comforting. Soothing. Almost-

Jean’s phone chirped a moment before it started ringing. He didn’t spare it a single glance, boring a hole into the ceiling. He didn’t answer it the first time. Nor the second time. Nor the third time. Nor the fourth.

Finally, on the fifth try, he sat up, groaning and regretting it immediately as pressure rushed to his forehead.  
“Fuck.” He was a second too late to answer the phone, blankly staring at it until the small envelope popped up.

5 new voicemails.

Fuck. Was it Mom? 

Jean struggled to figure out how thumbs and fingers in general worked to press the button, everything taking much for energy than he cared to spend. He managed to figure it out after several tries then slammed the phone against his head, wincing.

“You have five unheard messages. First unheard message:

Jean rolled his eyes as the first voicemail started and he heard his coach telling him he missed practice again and if he missed one more he would be off the team.

Whoop-de-FUCKING-doo. Least he’d be away from stupid Jaeger.

“Next unheard message.”

He listened to half of it, before he deleted it.

Damn spam.

The next two voice mails were, in fact, from his mom telling him to make sure he picked up the dry cleaning.

He pulled the phone away, done with all the bullshit messages. 

I just want to, to sleep for a little bit then I’ll do something. Just-

“Hey Jean, it’s Marco. I lost my old phone so my parents deactivated the old one! This is my new number. I hope you aren’t worried. Take care!”

Jean’s eyes shot open and he sprung to his feet, staring at the phone.

Marco?

He went to his calls list, searching for the unknown number and hit call.

This better not be a fucking prank.

One ring.

Marco, please be there.

Two rings.

Marco.

Three rings.

Godddamit, Marco!

Four rings.

One more ring.

Five rings.

“You have reached the voicemail of -”

“Why won’t you answer your fucking phone, you-”

“Jean?”

Somebody had picked up the phone during the voicemail message. Not just anybody.

“Marco?”

“Yes..Jean? Are you okay?”

“Fuck! Marco! You’re alive!” Jean felt the phone dig into his ear but he couldn’t care less. He needed to get Marco’s voice as close to him as he could. Tears formed in his eyes as he squeezed the phone closer and closer, his breath spurting out, hands and knees trembling. “You’re alive, you’re alive! You’re fucking alive!”

“Yeah, I got a new phone. Sorry about that, I-”

“But the news report! The fucking news report. You were dead! I saw you!”

There was a pause on the other line before Marco spoke again. “Oh, you saw the accident?”

“FUCKING YES I SAW THE ACCIDENT AND YOU DIDN’T CALL YOU ASSHOLE.”

“Oh Jean, I’m so sorry. I-”

“You better be fucking sorry. I thought you were dead. You never take that long to answer and Jinae is a shitty unsafe city and-”

“I’m here. I’m alive and well. I’m whole.” 

Marco’s words came out and wrapped Jean in a tight, warm, loving embrace. One he snuggled into. “I was worried.”

“I know.”

“I love you, Marco.”

“I love you too, Jean.”

**Author's Note:**

> So, in case anybody wants to say I'm being unrealistic LET ME JUST SAY  
> the panic? The freaking out?  
> Legit. That's me. That's how I panic when people haven't responded and ESPECIALLY when my girlfriend doesn't answer for a while.  
> All of it essentially is me how I'd react.
> 
> And come on, let's all face it, we know Jean would be one to freak the eff out.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed!


End file.
